Erne Eagles

Ballymoney Badgers

           The Eagles First official friendly game was played this weekend, but not with the best start for the pre-season Eagles. The First period started off pretty tight with excellent attack and defence on both sides, good end-to-end play and leaving it scoreless at the end of the period. Then in the second period, the Badgers stuck in a few early goals and left us down with no goals at the end of the period. The third period again picked up with an early goal from Darren Browne for the Eagles and a mid period goal from Eagles defenseman Richard Grace. The final score was at 5 - 2 to the Badgers and hopefully the experience should be good base ground for the Eagles to develop from. All in all, for a first time playing together and shorthanded, it was not a bad result for the Eagles, and well done the Badgers on their win and for travelling down for the game.

Erne Eagles

Lisburn Devils

          The Eagles second official friendly game and first away game was played this weekend at the Valley in Belfast with an unfortunate defeat of the Eagles once again. The first period was off to an ok start with an early goal from defenseman David Barnes although the Eagles were trailing at the end of the period. In the second and third periods Richard Grace and Darren Browne scored making the final score for the Eagles 3. Unfortunately for the Eagles, the Devils were putting them away twice as fast and the score ended up at 8 to 3 in favour of the Devils. (No official referee for this match, so score on Devils side may be incorrect). the Eagles have come away from this defeat knowing only too well the importance of tight defence and fitness (both needed to be worked upon), especially with such a small bench of players. Congratulations to the Devils on their win and extended thanks for the invitation to play.

Erne Eagles

East Coast Blaze

          The Eagles second game of the day again ended with an unfortunate defeat of the Eagles once again. The first period was off to a great start with a goal from Raymond Browne and although the Eagles were trailing by little at the end of the first period, hopes were high and all was looking good with the majority of the play in the Blaze half of the court and many shots on goal. In the second period, another two goals came from Raymond Browne and Colin Tweed. Meanwhile, Blaze were also scoring at a slightly faster rate, getting some long-rangers between the pipes. In the third period, Raymond Browne slotted in a third goal to give him a hat-trick in the game. Again, Eagles generated plenty of chances for shots and the defeat highlited that shot accuracy and defence of long-range shots is another area for improvement. Although defeated, the team played as much more of a unit against Blaze due to the help from the Ballymoney Badgers players who came and provided us with a full line for the game. This allowed much faster play from us and of course a goal from Colin Tweed as mentioned above. Thanks to Colin Tweed, Andrew Dickson (who got a nasty nose injury), Clifford Gage, Dave Dickson (another nasty facial injury from a puck) and Mark Lamont from the Ballymoney Badgers for joining us for the game. the final score was 12 to 4 in favour of Blaze. Congratulations to Blaze on their win and extended thanks for the invitation to play.